Sixteen civilians injured in Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials say

(Reuters) -At least 16 civilians were injured, including a 15-year-old boy, late on Sunday in Russia’s air strikes on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.

Zaporizhzhia Governor Ivan Fedorov said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia dealt at least seven air strikes to the city and the surrounding district, damaging 13 apartment buildings, educational institutions, cars, garages and private residences.

Rescuers evacuated residents from several damaged apartment buildings, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said on Telegram. The ministry said according to preliminary information, Russia used its guided aerial bombs to strike Zaporizhzhia.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks, but thousands of civilians have been killed – the vast majority of them Ukrainians – in the war that Moscow launched with a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Fedorov said on Telegram that in total, Russia conducted 363 air and ground strikes in the past day on 12 settlements in the broader Zaporizhzhia region of which the Zaporizhzhia city is the administrative centre.

Ukraine’s emergency services posted a video on its Facebook page showing rescuers trying to remove debris and unblock an entry to an apartment and attending to wounded people at night in front of a damaged residential building.

Russia also launched two guided air missiles and four attack drones targeting Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said on Monday.

Three of the drones were shot down over the northeastern Sumy region, the air force said on Telegram.

The two missiles and one drone “did not reach their targets due to the active anti-aircraft missile defence of the Defence Forces of Ukraine”, the air force said.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv; Editing by Jamie Freed)